Stop Face-Tuning Your Life!

by Mario A. Campanaro

Stop Face-Tuning Your Life!

by Mario A. Campanaro

I think one of the most crucial things any actor can do, and probably one of the most important things an actor must do, is to come to terms with and embrace their own true, authentic, one-of-a-kind humanity. And frankly, that starts with giving yourself a break from this idea of who and what you are supposed to be. Understanding that you are not perfect and you don’t have to be.

You’re allowed to not have it all together all the time. You’re allowed to be messy sometimes. As difficult as it may be, you’re allowed to be struggling financially sometimes. You don’t need to be driving a BMW or a Mercedes in LA! You’re allowed to not look like you belong on the cover of Vogue or GQ. You’re allowed to be getting older, to have a grey hair or a wrinkle or two. My God, you’re allowed to have “love handles” without it being the end of the world. They are love handles after all, so love your love handles! You’re allowed to live in the vast states of being that exist within your vulnerability. You do not have to contract, constrict, make yourself smaller, lower your voice, dim your light, try to hide, or even become invisible.

It’s okay to speak your mind and to understand that your thoughts and point of view, your voice, are just as important to be heard and discussed as anyone else’s. It’s ok to be as tall, as big, as bright, as loud as you are and to speak your mind and to understand that your thoughts and point of view, your voice, are just as important to be heard and discussed as anyone else’s. It’s okay to have uncomfortable feelings. It’s okay to fumble, to fall down, or even fail sometimes. It’s okay to be fully present, to have your own damn voice and still inhale, to exhale, and have a beating heart, just as you are.

We get so conditioned, from an early age and especially now through the distorted veil of social media, to believe we’re supposed to look a certain way, be a certain way, and have it all figured out. We’re supposed to be Face-Tuned and Life-Tuned into some kind of glossy perfection. But that gets in our way, blinds us, stifles us, and actually hurts us as artists because it teaches us that we have to live artificially in order to fit in or “make it” in this business. And when artificiality moves in, authenticity gets pushed out of the true creative and lived experience.

The truth is, the real work comes from our authenticity. That is what is truly required, expected, and even demanded of us in this art form. What people think this work is and what it actually is are two very different things. It is all about authenticity. And authenticity means embracing that we are all perfectly imperfect, imperfectly perfect, just by being who we are: real, living, breathing, heart-beating human beings.

When we do that as actors, we give ourselves permission to simply be. It is through the simplicity of being that the complexity of the human condition is revealed. But we must be constantly learning who we are as life drives us forward while owning who we are during that process. That sense of self we bring to the work breathes life into it like nothing else, and in ways we could never have imagined.

That is why I always encourage the actors I work with to simply go out into the world—the real world. Go to a coffee shop, a grocery store, a restaurant, a bar, a mall, the farmer's market, wherever. I don’t care where, just go and do it. Watch people. Observe them. Study them. Take notes if you want to. Notice how they are in a specific environment and how they interact with each other, whether with a familiar relationship, a new relationship (Tinder date maybe?), or with complete strangers around them, and how they are when they’re by themselves.

Nobody has it together. Nobody is perfect. We all have quirks. We all make mistakes. We all stutter, forget something, trip on that man curb, laugh because we tripped on that curb, look around as if if someone put something there that made us trip on that curb, get angry because someone is to blame put something must have definitely been put there that made us trip on that curb, cry because we got stubbed our toe really hard tripping on that curb, get lost, get depressed, get sick, get heartbroken, have bad hair days, or days when we just don’t want to stick to that diet or go to the gym.

The list goes on and on, and that is what makes us beautiful. That is what makes us human. That is what makes us interesting to watch. Stories are powerful because they reflect our shared imperfections and our shared human obstacles. They remind us: “You don’t have it together? Me neither! Awesome!” And in that recognition, we connect.

In an art form, in a profession that asks an audience to say, “Hey, let’s suspend time and space and look at me as part of telling this story,” one of the biggest obstacles actors face is the belief that they are not enough to do just that—that who they are at their core isn’t enough to bring the material to life. It's fascinating, isn’t it? The desire to do it very often comes at the price of all those insecurities rising to the surface.

Let’s be very honest: that’s when acting stops being fun. That’s when it becomes overly complicated, heavy, and stiff. Paralysis sets in because the actor is trying to fit themselves into an idea of how they are supposed to be, and therefore how something is supposed to go. Yes, it must always be about the given circumstances, one hundred percent, but those are still just two-dimensional words on paper.

There is another must, and that is to dive into everything, all those insecurities that are keeping you from living your true authentic self. You must remember, what you struggle with “out there” will inevitably show up in your acting. So the actor must do “the work” to actually do “the work”. What’s missing from those two-dimensional words on a piece of paper is you. Every playwright and screenwriter knows and understands this: the words are only as powerful as the human instrument bringing them to life.

We are looking for you, the actor, to reveal yourself within those circumstances, to bring your imagination, your lived experience, and your authentic humanity into the story, and to see what happens when you do. That is what is truly interesting. It is captivating when you see a real human being in action within a story’s circumstances.

When you remove the shackles and abandon the idea of how things are supposed to be, and instead reveal your authenticity within those circumstances, something real, profound, moving, magnetic, captivating, and magical happens. Something deeply human emerges.

And you, the actor, start to experience freedom in the work. You start to feel alive. You start to have fun. You are no longer imprisoned by pushed-upon brainwashed hypnotic ideas of how to be. You are who you are. You are living moment to unknown moment free, revealing your true self as the instrument that breathes life into the story and shows humanity to humanity.

When you truly own who you are, acting stops being complicated. Your soul, your true self, is present. All the hard work becomes effortless by mere trust in the work and one's true self. The work becomes joyful. It becomes free. And it can truly be of service. And in that freedom, and in that intent, the acting becomes undetectable and we witness something beautiful: a human being having a real experience in a public way, within the given circumstances.